Is there even a chemical formula or any scientific description for adamantium besides *snikt*? I've heard of an incredibly hard material having been accidentally synthesized during research on bone transplants -- so hard, it actually scratched the diamond. I'll go look that up.
As I said, it is a legendary material. I'll look it up again - I love the grand Oxford dictionary... nothing quite beats having 600,000 words at ones fingertips. Anyway... directly quoting that venerable dictionary:
From Old French, adamaunt, from Latin, Adamant-em, which in turn was from the greek adamas/adamanta, which is the adjective for invincible (from a=not, manaw=I tame) Afterwards applied to a name of the hardest metal, probably steel; also applied by Theophrastus to the hardest crystalline gem then known, the emery-stone of Naxos, 'an amorphous form of corundum.' in L. poetically for the hardest iron or steel, or anything very hard and indestructible; also, with Pliny, the name of a transparent crystalline gem of the hexahedral system, apparently corundum or white sapphire, but extended and at length transferred to the still harder diamond after this became known in the West. The early med. L. writers apparently explaining the word from adama-re 'to take a liking to, have an attraction for,' took the lapidem adamantem for the loadstone or magnet (an ore of iron, and thus also associated wit hteh ancient metallic sense); and with this confusion the word passed into the modern languages. In OE it occurs as adamans, from the ned. L.; and in the 13th c. as adamantines stan, a transl. of lapis adamantinus, with the adj. mistaken for a sb. in apposition to lapis, and so englished as stone of adamantin. In the current form itis a 14th c. adoption of the literary Fr. adamaunt, ademaunt....Alright, I'll skip over the rest of the etymology. The actual defenition:
Name of an alleged rock or mineral, as to which vague, contradictory, and fabulous notions long prevailed. The properties ascribed to it show a confusion of ideas between the diamond (or other hard gems) and the loadstone or magnet, though by writers affecting better infirmation, it was distinguished from one or other, or from both. The confusion with loadstone ceased in the 17th c., and the word was then used by scientific writers as a synonym of diamond. In the modern use it is only a poetical or rhetorical name for the embodiment of surpassing hardness; that which is impregnable to any application of force.It then goes on to list the various occurances in English literature, based upon how it is used, and for what material.
1. Without identification with any other substance
c 885 K. Ælfred Greg. Past. (1871) 270 Se hearda stan, se (?)e adamans hatte, done mon mid nane isene ceorfan ne mæg.Ummm... I think that's a little too old. Can anyone read that? I sure can't. But I suppose that means the usage is old. Well, by being identified with the diamond:
1393 Gower Conf. III. I12 The seconde [stone in the crown] is an adamant.I guess that exemplifies it well enough. If Oxford says it is so in English, it is so. That answer any questions about adamant?
Personally, I vary the use. I use it... let me check... 8 times in Twilight of Fate, and 5 times in my other writing, for anyone that cares. I like the word, but am wary of over using it. Like 'surpassing' or 'sigaldry'... wonderful words, but not to be used very often if they are to retain their interest. Usually, it's just in the form 'adamant about such and such', though in ToF I once refer something as a gem of adamant, and of Janus that his sinews were as unyielding adamant, which a reference more to a metal. I'm not sure how anyone else uses it, for the most part; I'm all across the board. Tolkien, of the famed Silmarils, says: 'Like the crystal of diamonds it appeared, and yet was more strong than adamant, so that no violence could mar it or break it within the Kingdom of Arda.' I think he uses it also in reference to mithril, but I cannot be certain.
Now, as far as Lavos goes, the infamous porcupine isn't even close. But the nature of his power does not require him to: it fully destroys everything, just in an inaccurate manner. But who ever demanded subtlety of that demon?
